Blue

You'd previously linked this video about Starliner in the Tactical Tanker thread, also from Ellie in Space. I'm not much for YouTube, but I found her reports to be comprehensive yet concise, and very well constructed. That video focused on NASAs report of findings on the Starliner mission, released in February, including a lot of NASA head Jared Isaacman presenting the results. He's pulling from his memo to the entire NASA workforce published last month, worth a read here. The report itself is linked at the bottom of this NASA press release. 311 total pages, including 9 appendices, but a good Executive Summary on page 3-5. In short, just kind of an all around shitshow, with NASA and Boeing both being incredibly inept. Many echoes of Challenger and Columbia. One bright spot of the whole affair was Isaacman. I was skeptical of his appointment as NASA head. I'd previously figured you'd want a politician in that spot; someone who was adept at going to Congress and battling for money. Isaacman seems to be the leader NASA needs. Doing a lot of saying the quiet part out loud, even after only being in the position since December. Couple examples below. Both are from only the past couple weeks, which is exciting to me. After watching NASA falter for so long, are we finally witnessing some real change with the agency? Does NASA need more money? Isaacman: No, the answer isn't more money. We have enough money. We need to focus on the needle-moving objectives. Execute with urgency, in iterative and safe way, and empower the workforce and our partners to get the job done. Then this bit below, which deserves to be quoted in it's entirety. NASA Watch article with the comments, originally pulled from this post on X. This should sound familiar to anyone who's had even a passing association with a NASA program. Layers upon layers of outsourcing, with every associated company taking a skim off the top.

I'm sure we'll see Crenshaw landing at a K street lobbying firm by the end of the month.

I dunno, they call out Duggan (the former Marine) by name in the press release as someone with "similar charges," but they leave Brown's co-conspirator unnamed. Have to assume there are more than just Duggan and Brown who fell into this line of work. Wonder how many have gone down this path...........

DOJ press release also includes the F-15 and F-16, but it's unclear if he was pilot or sim instructor in those. Looks like he went to China in Dec 2023, and returned Feb 2026, after which he was arrested. Seems like a pro tip would be, if you're going to go play these stupid games, plan on never coming back to the US. ETA: Press release mentions conversations with a "co-conspirator." Would seem to make sense this guy wasn't the only former US serviceman over there. Have to think the rest of them have taken notice, and plan on not coming back.

Wow. I don't have a dog in this fight, but damn. Pulling CSO and RPA LTs off of casual status en masse to go to UPT? That's pretty unprecedented if true (not doubting these posters, just questioning the second hand nature of the info).

Even two and a half years later, these posts are still relavent.

I voted for this: And I also voted for this:

Hill AFB Depot (Ogden Air Logistics Complex) completes it's final A-10 work. https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1asgebWcC6/

What would you like us to discuss? News I've seen is that the latest "dump" is some x millions of pages, or along those lines. Not clear to me if that is indexed and searchable, one big file labeled Epstein.pdf, or what. So far, only story I've seen is something about Bill Gates getting an STD from a Russian? hooker. I keep seeing people trying desperately to tie Trump into Epstein's depravity, but I haven't seen anything conclusive.

Yup. I'm not privy to what the White House has planned for illegal immigration through the rest of Trump's term. I'd like to think that this current wave of ICE enforcement is just the first step, and that the items @pbar highlighted above are coming next. But I doubt it. My limited understanding of the matter is that there are already a lot of good laws on the books for dealing with businesses that knowingly employ illegal immigrants. Unfortunately, I suspect it'll be status quo. Some nibbling around the edges, and that's it. I'd love to be proven incorrect, though.

It really does feel like someone's trying to reboot the 2020 "Summer of Love." They want their George Floyd-style martyr. They want riots and unrest. I take a little bit of solace in the fact that, as I look around at the people I know who are always ardent supporters of The Current Thing, they're a little ambivalent. Oh they'll still give you a hearty "Fuck ICE" if you ask them. But they're not going out of their way. Not a lot of banners over their social media profile pictures like with Covid, and that sort of thing. I think people have run out of give a fuck, along with being overwhelmed just keeping their heads above water in our ever-deteriorating economy.

I suppose it could be that Trump wants Greenland to be the 51st star on the American flag. I doubt that's the plan though. I don't know what he wants, but I assume it's something more mundane (new SOFA as @Prosuper pointed out, maybe some kind of mineral rights, etc). And when Trump wants to move the needle on something, but he knows he'll run into difficulty, he has a well-worn strategy: If he wants X, he proposes X2. When he knows he's going to face some kind of challenge on an issue, he proposes the most hyperbolic, most extreme version of what he wants. The media melts down and the public melts down. Whoever is on the other side of whatever the issue is, melts down as well. After all of the chaos, Trump backs down, and the other side backs down, they negotiate, and Trump often gets what he wants, or close to it. It's not even all that unique. Developers do it all the time. When they want to put up a new 10 story building, but know they're going to face a bunch of NIMBYs, they go in with plans for 20 stories, take the attacks, and eventually walk it back to the 10 story plan they wanted in the first place. I suspect that's what's happening with Greenland.

This is a good start. I don't know if this is the place I would have started, but no matter. When it comes to defense spending, there is such a tremendous amount of giveaways, make-work, and other constructs that serve no purpose but to hand out money from Uncle Sam with no expectation of anything in return. I hope they continue along this path.

I assume you're referring to this? ItaMilRadarUS Tanker Squadron Departs Qatar as Iran Tensions RiseIn the early evening today, several US Air Force KC-135R aerial refuelling aircraft departed Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar and headed south over the Arabian Peninsula before switching off their transpond

I'm a longtime reader of Karl Denninger's Market Ticker blog. His tagline is "Commentary on the The Capital Markets," but the subject matters range from politics, to technology, and elsewhere. Every year he does a "predictions" article for the year ahead, to include scoring of his predictions from the previous year. He gives himself a 59% for predictions from last year, so he's not Nostradamus, but the fact that he actually goes back and scores himself puts him above most other professional prognosticators. Article here, with predictions below.

Didn't digest the whole report, but this bit from the Executive Summary seems to sum it up. TO guidance is to use the PMA (a laptop hooked into the aircraft) to actuate the launch rail. Instead, the team lead sat in the cockpit and used the cockpit controls (in violation of TO guidance). When sitting in the cockpit, there is poor visibility to the weapons bay. There was some confusion amongst the team members, and the launch rail was retracted by the maintainer in the cockpit while another maintainer had his head in the way. That poor soul had their head fatally crushed. Maybe. I want to know more about how JBER personnel got to the point where they were actuating the launch rail from the cockpit instead of the laptop, in violation of TO guidance. The report indicates this was something that was "routine" at JBER, so it would be interesting to know how that came about. Sounds like classic "normalization of deviance" going on. Contributing, but they were doing this work in a hangar, with the APU running. So couldn't communicate verbally due to the noise, and had to rely on hand signals. Maybe I'm showing my ignorance of these things, but is that normal? Don't you typically have power in the hangar you can hook up to, or other ways to avoid running the APU?

Looks like the below X post summarizes the issue, for those who (like me), who didn't want to sit through Shawn Ryan's 8 minute video. Questions about US House members becoming millionaires are always concerning, for obvious reasons. I'd be more concerned about what I think is the more likely scenario: Corporations, NGOs, or other organizations who want to gain favor with Crenshaw, offering to foot the bill for his birthday bash. He entered Congress in 2018, and has been reelected three times since then. According to Wikipedia, his 2020 campaign was one of the most expensive Congressional races in the country, at $10M+. Someone is paying that bill, and it's for sure not Crenshaw himself. I don't follow this shit as much as others, but I've heard Crenshaw on a podcast once or twice, and read about him here and there. Ten years of service and five tours as a SEAL is an enviable military record, by any account. Good on him for leveraging that into a political career. But he sure comes off like a grown adult throwing a tantrum in this current issue. Also, based on the few things I've heard and read about him, he really comes off as someone who's committing the gravest error of celebrity: He's believing his own press. He's got this great image of American Hero Navy SEAL turned political crusader, fighting the good fight. While that makes for good press, I'm sure he's just as dirty as your normal Congress critter. Duke Cunningham was another Navy hero who rose to Congress, and by all accounts fell into the same trap, ultimately landing himself in prison. Finally, just because this kind of shit really grinds my gears: "My boys down at 6....." Man, STFU. You've been out for almost ten years. Your rank is Mister. Or Congressman. But throwing around comments like "your boys" just makes you sound like yet another washed-up military retiree in the Beltway, trying to impress people with a bunch of mindless name dropping.

Honest question: You're punching out at the 15 year mark?

Yeah. Play stupid fucking games Win stupid fucking prizes

Spit-balling from the cheap seats: If the Air Force desired to set up a reasonable ACE program as quickly and cheaply as possible, would reactivating the T-1 fleet be an option?

Would love to see Adam Carolla take over Kimmel's slot.

Curious to know the scope of the "gender identity content" that was being taught. Are we talking about 1-2 slides out of a whole semester? Or did this prof hijack the entire content of this "Children's Literature" course to push a bunch of gender identity nonsense? Both possibilities are obviously troubling, but it seems like it's going to matter, given the fact that the prof in question is screaming "But my academic freedom," while Welsh is citing "Academic responsibility." Searching around, I couldn't find anything specific.

This forum needs a TDS button.

🙄

While I don't believe them for a second, if this is the path they're going to choose, so be it. In that case, I'd like the investigation on Jeffrey Epstein to pivot to the question of: Where the fuck did he get all that money? That always seems to be lost in the breathless discussion about supposed "lists." Dude was a former teacher who pivoted to finance, and by all accounts, was pretty lousy at it. But somehow, he amassed a fortune north of a half billion dollars, to include properties all over the globe. It's pretty clear he didn't get this money from legitimate financial trading. There is strong evidence that he had financial backing from someone or some entity. Where did he get he money? Who bankrolled Epstein? To what end? Those are the questions I'd like answered.